What may appear to be overnight breakthroughs are in fact the result of persistence over a decade.
A delegation of 30 representatives from Germany’s biomedical sector visited Nanjing on 23 May for two days of intensive exchange and site visits. The delegation included representatives from German pharmaceutical companies, research institutes, and business associations, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Helios International, and the German-Chinese Business Association. They visited a State Key Laboratory at China Pharmaceutical University, the Institute of Innovative Drugs in the Jiangning High-tech Zone, and Nanjing Life Science Town, and had discussions with Nanjing-based companies on potential cooperation opportunities.
Behind this two-way engagement lies more than a decade of accumulated strength in Nanjing’s biomedical sector. The city, known for its educational and research resources, is home to top universities, a hundred-billion-level biomedical cluster, and a national center facilitating technology transfer.
I. Innovation at the Source: The Chemistry between Universities and Industries
The foundation of Nanjing’s biomedical industry lies in its rich educational and scientific resources. The city is home to four specialized biomedical institutions, including China Pharmaceutical University and Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, as well as more than 20 universities offering biomedical-related programs. Together, they produce more than 60,000 professionals in related fields each year, placing Nanjing among China’s leading cities in biomedical talent cultivation.
China Pharmaceutical University is widely regarded as a cradle of China’s pharmaceutical talent. Over the years, the university has trained more than 100,000 high-level pharmaceutical professionals and produced 10 academicians of the CAS and the CAE as well as foreign academies, along with numerous leading scholars and entrepreneurs. Backed by strong disciplinary advantages in pharmacy and biomedical engineering, the university also holds a large number of high-value patents and has achieved research breakthroughs.
Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, meanwhile, is one of the earliest higher education institutions in China specializing in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Renowned as a “cradle of higher TCM education”, it has also built deep expertise in Chinese pharmacology.
Together, these universities not only provide Nanjing with a steady pipeline of high-level talent, but also serve as a driving force behind the city’s industrial innovation.
In 2025, three first-in-class innovative drugs developed in Nanjing were approved for the market, while 145 new drug product approvals were granted, ranking first in Jiangsu Province. Revenue from Nanjing’s biomedical industry has surpassed 200 billion yuan, supported by more than 1,000 large-scale enterprises, over 1,000 high-tech firms, 23 listed companies and 42 nationally recognized “little giant” enterprises with strong performance and tremendous growth potential.
Nanjing’s three major biomedical parks all ranked among China’s top 30 in the China Biomedical Park Competitiveness Ranking. Nanjing Biotech and Pharmaceutical Valley ranked eighth nationwide, Jiangning High-tech Development Zone seventeenth, and Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone twenty-fifth. Together, the three parks form key pillars supporting the city’s hundred-billion-level biomedical cluster.
As one of the city’s core biomedical hubs, Nanjing Biotech and Pharmaceutical Valley now boasts more than 1,300 companies across the industry supply chain, with over 50 first-in-class technologies and products. The park has gradually developed a “one core, two wings, and three chains” industry structure centered on gene and cell therapy, supported by innovative drugs and high-end medical devices, and integrated with testing services, CXO, and pharmaceutical distribution.
The Jiangning High-tech Development Zone has designated biomedicine as its top industry for regional industry upgrading and transformation. The district has gathered nearly 400 pharmaceutical enterprises spanning six major segments, including innovative drug development, cell and gene therapy, and high-end medical devices. Leveraging its University Town, Jiangning High-tech Zone has also partnered with China Pharmaceutical University to establish a provincial-level proof-of-concept center for innovative drugs, building an integrated industrial system that combines laboratory R&D, pilot production, and large-scale manufacturing.
The Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone focuses on areas such as innovative drugs and high-end medical devices, providing companies with specialized facilities for R&D headquarters, pilot batch acceleration and manufacturing. The zone aims to attract innovation-driven projects and high-level talent while building a new landmark for the regional pharmaceutical industry. Among its flagship projects is the Xingang Biomedical Park, its headquarters aims to become an influential hub for high-end biomedical manufacturing and innovation commercialization in the Yangtze River Delta. The park’s main structure has already been completed and is expected to begin operation in 2026.
II. Commercialization: A National-level Center Bridging the Last Mile
In December 2024, China’s first regional University Biomedical Technology Transfer Center was unveiled at Nanjing Biotech and Pharmaceutical Valley in Nanjing Jiangbei New Area. The center directly addresses four major bottlenecks in biomedical tech: weak industry-academia connections, limited commercial viability of many patented technologies, shortages of professional technology transfer expertise, and development reluctance stemming from lengthy approval processes.
With more than 1.4 billion yuan invested in the construction of six technology centers and three major platforms, the center has also established a development fund of 8.4 billion yuan, and trained 162 full-time technology managers, systematically bridging the “last mile” from laboratory research to industrial production.
The center has also pioneered a 500 million yuan five-year early-stage funding program aimed at projects still undergoing proof-of-concept validation, giving financial support to the earliest stages of commercialization. So far, it has connected with 83 universities nationwide, screened 1,605 projects and facilitated the commercialization of 65, with total transaction value reaching 249 million yuan.
When a research team led by Professor Guo Qinglong at China Pharmaceutical University encountered funding difficulties while exploring new clinical applications for flavonoid compounds extracted from Scutellaria baicalensis, technology managers stepped in to help secure a 5 million yuan loan for innovation and early-stage commercialization funding. The team later signed a cooperation agreement worth tens of millions of yuan with a Beijing-based company.
Wang Yafeng, a biology professor at Nanjing University, entered the center after a successful proof of concept. Within a year, he had established a company and expanded commercial partnerships. Cases like these demonstrate the effectiveness of the “center + technology manager + fund” model.
III. Global Outreach: From Foundation Innovation to International Recognition
Nanjing’s innovative pharmaceutical companies are rapidly stepping onto the global stage. In 2025, Novlead Biotech was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s “Technology Pioneers”, becoming the only healthcare company from China on the list. Hong Kong-listed biotech rising star Leads Biolabs has also reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting for two consecutive years.
In overseas licensing deals, Frontier Biotechnologies, based in Jiangning High-tech Zone, signed an exclusive licensing agreement with global pharmaceutical giant GSK, granting the company worldwide rights to develop two Small Interfering RNA products. The deal includes upfront and milestone payments of up to 950 million US dollars.
Simcere Pharmaceutical Group also entered into cooperation with Germany’s Boehringer-Ingelheim to jointly develop a proprietary bispecific antibody, with the deal reaching a potential overseas value of approximately 8 billion yuan.
In high-end diagnostics, Geneseeq’s self-developed “GeneseeqPrime” became the world’s first and only high-throughput large-panel sequencing kit to receive FDA, CE, and NMPA approvals, enabling “one test for global recognition”. Its multi-cancer early detection product, CanScan, has also received CE’s certification and FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation.
Liu Sisi, director of R&D at Geneseeq, said Nanjing’s “institutional support covering the entire lifecycle of enterprise development” has “significantly accelerated” both research and product commercialization.
IV. Ecosystem: Policies, Funds, and Emerging Frontiers
The formula for success in the bio-medicine industry is sometimes summed up as “ten years of R&D plus one billion dollars”. The industry’s high-risk, long-cycle nature requires a comprehensive ecosystem encompassing policy, funding, platforms, and visionary planning. Nanjing’s response has been a coordinated package of institutional support.
In January 2026, the Nanjing municipal government issued a set of policies aimed at fostering new-quality productive forces to promote high-quality development, allocating 2.876 billion yuan in fiscal funding to key industries, including biomedicine. Projects achieving breakthroughs in pre-clinical technologies are eligible for support of up to 2 million yuan, while companies conducting innovative drug clinical research can receive rewards of up to 1 million yuan per product.
The city has also established a dedicated office to advance breakthroughs in the biomedical industry, directing policy, talent and institutional resources toward the sector through top-level planning and full-chain industrial support. For example, to address the lengthy approval process for importing biological materials — a common challenge faced by innovative drug companies — Nanjing introduced a supervision mechanism that shortened approval times from 20 – 30 working days to as little as one to three days.
On the investment side, the 2.5-billion-yuan Boyuan Parallel RMB Fund II, completed its first closing using a parallel structure in Shanghai and Nanjing, focusing on sectors including biomedicine. Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Industrial Investment Group has also partnered with XianFeng K2VC to establish an industry fund of 300 million yuan.
In emerging frontiers, Nanjing has released an action plan for advancing breakthroughs in the brain-computer interface (BCI) industry from 2026 to 2030. The city has already attracted more than 20 key enterprises, established China’s first BCI outpatient clinic, and launched the country’s first domestically developed invasive deep-brain stimulation device “Mingtong”. BCI technology is gradually moving from the laboratory into commercial application.
Having surpassed 200 billion yuan in industry revenue per annum, Nanjing is now building a bridge connecting research, commercialization, and global markets. A biomedical innovation hub combining innovation source capacity with global competitiveness is rapidly taking shape in this city known for its educational and research resources.
